Emma Stone and co-star Sean Penn pose on the red carpet for the premiere of "Gangster Squad" at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood on Monday. KEVIN WINTER, GETTY IMAGES

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Emma Stone, shown with Ryan Gosling in "Gangster Squad," says she modeled her appearance in the film after 1940s actresses such as Lauren Bacall, Rita Hayworth and Gene Tierney. WILSON WEBB, WARNER BROS. PICTURES

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Emma Stone says her character in "Gangster Squad," Grace Faraday, lives the dark side of the Hollywood dream.

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Emma Stone plays the sultry girlfriend of mobster Mickey Cohen in the new period film "Gangster Squad." WILSON WEBB, WARNER BROS.

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Emma Stone at the launch of her new line of Revlon makeup last month in New York City. FILE PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES

â€˜Gangster Squadâ€™ directorâ€™s favorite gangster movies

"Gangster Squad," which tells the story of a secret group of police officers formed in the late 1940s to rid Los Angeles of Mickey Cohen and his underworld cronies, is director Ruben Fleischer's first shot at making a gangster movie. But he says he has been a gangster movie fan his whole life.

So we asked him to list his five favorite gangster movies of all time. His choices:

With starring roles in "Zombieland," "Easy A," "Crazy, Stupid, Love" and "The Amazing Spider-man," Emma Stone is one of the coolest young actresses working today. No one would dispute that she is a woman of her time.

But director Ruben Fleischer, who first directed her in the aforementioned "Zombieland," apparently saw something different in the 24-year-old actress when he cast her as Mickey Cohen's sultry girlfriend in the 1940s era film "Gangster Squad," which opens Friday.

"There is a timeless quality to Emma," the director explained. "When you meet her, you'd never know she is as young as she is. She has this quality as if she has been around forever. It's a quality that makes you believe that she could live in the '40s.

"When Lauren Bacall was in her first movie, she was even younger than Emma, but she didn't come off as a girl, and I think Emma has that same quality. Her deep voice is also a quality that a lot of femme fatales of the '40s had. The red hair also reminds me of Rita Hayworth, so I think she would have fit right in. All those great actresses were fun to watch on screen, and so is Emma."

Stone, whose last period piece was "The Help," is part of a romantic triangle in "Gangster Squad," appearing in public on the arm of gangster Cohen (played by Sean Penn) while romancing a cop (her "Crazy, Stupid, Love" co-star Ryan Gosling) on the side.

The film takes place in 1949, when a secret squad of police officers is formed to oust Cohen and other mob figures from Los Angeles by any means necessary. Josh Brolin plays the head of the so-called Gangster Squad.

The film was scheduled for a September release, but was delayed after the Aurora, Colo., movie theater shootings. The movie included a shooting scene inside a movie theater, which was deleted during re-shoots.

ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER:I've never interviewed a tomato before.

EMMA STONE: Am I a tomato?

Q.Have you seen your movie?

A. Not in a long time.

Q.A character in the movie refers to you as a tomato.

A. Ah, that's right. I am a tomato.

Q.Tomato is a term for women in period gangster movies, and I was wondering how much you got into the period.

A. I absolutely got into it. Even the look of my character was a hodgepodge of four different actresses from that era, like Lauren Bacall, Rita Hayworth, Gene Tierney and even Vivien Leigh. We talked a lot about actresses of that day, and how they would inspire each other by copying and emulating each other's looks. Like Marilyn Monroe did with Jean Harlow. My character dreamed of being a star, and the year was 1949, so I took a lot from Lauren Bacall because that was around the time of "The Big Sleep." I watched all those actresses in preparing for this role.

Q.From the same era, there is the dark side of that Hollywood dream, like the Black Dahlia, whose Hollywood dream was cut short when she got mixed up with the wrong person.

A. Exactly, and my character gets mixed up with Mickey Cohen. She lived the dark side of the dream.

Q.You understand that as a working movie actress today, you are part of the lineage that includes iconic actresses like Lauren Bacall and Rita Hayworth?

A. I do. I love that era. I feel a lot like Owen Wilson in that movie "Midnight in Paris." The present never seems as good as the past.

Q.What era appeals to you?

A. The silent era. As an actor, it must have been so much fun to work only with facial expressions. I also love the broads of the 1940s, like Bette Davis and Katharine Hepburn, or even Diane Keaton in those Woody Allen movies in the 1970s. I would love to have been an actress in any of those eras, but I feel very lucky to be an actress right now. There is a great opportunity to try a lot of different things now as opposed to previous eras, when many actresses got stuck in one type of role.

Q.So, from a work standpoint, it's better now?

A. Yes, from a work standpoint.

Q.What is the downside of working in this era?

A. The go-go nature of the business. It's amazing to have all these different opportunities in quick succession but it's detrimental in a way because you're so exposed all the time that people can get sick of your face. I know I'm sick of my face so I can't imagine how other people feel about my face.

Q. If you're sick of your face, how do you lower the heat without lowering the heat of your career?

A. I don't really know the answer to that, although I think some of it has to do with where you live. When you live here, you are involuntarily in that world. When you live somewhere else, you can stay out of it for a while.

Q.Do you read the celebrity junk written about you?

A. I don't tweet, but I have a silent Twitter account so I follow people. They'll send me things, like articles and photos. That's the worst part – the photos. I hate seeing photos of me when I'm out doing whatever and I didn't even know I was being photographed.

Q.You've done so many cool low-budget movies, but then you're involved in one of the biggest movie franchises of all time – "The Amazing Spiderman." How does a blockbuster like that fit into your plan of keeping a low profile?

A. I auditioned for "Spider-Man" on Sept. 17, literally the day that "Easy A" came out, so I was in no position to choose.

Q.Can you tell yet what being in a big movie like that has done for you?

A. I don't know if I can track what's happened. I'm more identifiable with blond hair (laughs). Other than that, who knows?

Q.Were you ever a fan of gangster movies?

A. No, the violence was too much for me, but I always loved the movies from the '40s.

Q.Name a few favorites.

A. "All About Eve" and "Bringing Up Baby" and I love, love, love "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane." I know that was a 1960s film, but it starred two great actresses from the Golden Age.

Q.This is the second movie you've done with Ruben Fleischer. Why did you want to work with him again?

A. Ruben saved me.

Q.In what way?

A. I don't know about other people, but I go a little crazy on these press tours. I was in the middle of a press tour for "Crazy, Stupid, Love," and I was going crazy. You do a project you love, but then you're forced to talk about it endlessly so that it seems that your words have no meaning anymore. After a while, I wonder why anyone would give a damn what I have to say. I can't tell what my value is anymore. I actually go a little nuts. Then, right in the midst of that, Ruben swept in and said, "Do you want to work on this action movie?" and I said, "I'd love to." I couldn't wait to stop talking about myself and start working with Ruben and Ryan (Gosling) again.

Q.How did you find out that the film's opening was going to be delayed because of the Aurora, Colo., theater shootings?

A. I was out of the country, and I read about the shootings. It was horrific. It felt like a nightmare. Then they sent out emails, saying they were going to do delay the opening to re-shoot some scenes. I didn't have to re-shoot anything because my character isn't involved in any of the violence.

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